Gavekal Dragonomics

Gilliam Collinsworth Hamilton

Sep 08th 2020

With no new domestic cases in almost a month, Xi Jinping effectively declared victory on Tuesday in the struggle against Covid-19. In this Quick Take, Gilliam explains how China’s post-Covid landscape is shaping up for consumer services, and why Beijing is unlikely to open up internationally any time soon.

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Louis Gave

Sep 07th 2020

August was an odd month in the US equity market. It saw Apple, the world’s largest company by market value, add US$650bn to its market-cap despite a string of troubling news. Yet for most investors, the biggest head-scratcher may have been the continued rise in the VIX, even as stocks, led by the Nasdaq, continued to make new highs.

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Charles Gave, Louis Gave, Will Denyer

Sep 04th 2020

Charles Gave, Louis Gave and Will Denyer joined Arthur Kroeber at the global investment roundtable to discuss what's going on in the global economy. Charles identified three big trends that will affect the investment environment in the long term, Will gave an in-dept update on the US economy, and Louis examined where to find assets with “anti-fragile” properties.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Dan Wang

Sep 03rd 2020

As the US government has rolled out ever more actions targeting Chinese firms, China has exercised restraint and has mostly opted not to retaliate in kind. As Dan explains, the government is taking the long view on the economy rather than pandering to nationalist outrage. But China is also developing legal tools that could be used to hurt US firms.

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Charles Gave, Louis Gave

Sep 03rd 2020

With US equities once again at record highs and the Fed promising to keep rates nailed to the floor, it is time to ask hard questions of the bull market that won’t die. That interrogation is conducted by Charles and Louis Gave. In these strange times, the case for owning anti-fragile assets has rarely been stronger, they contend. Four stand out for having weathered the pandemic and should be treated seriously.

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Vincent Tsui

Sep 02nd 2020

Asia has handled the pandemic decently well and its solid macroeconomic fundamentals means it does not face any kind of solvency crisis. The problem for investors is that the growth outlook remains pretty grim, with limited prospects for a swift improvement. As a result, investors should stick with local currency bonds, which look well set in this environment.

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Thomas Gatley

Sep 01st 2020

Good news for corporates: aggregate Q2 net profits for China’s listed non-financial firms were flat YoY, compared to a 50% Q1 decline. In this Quick Take, Thomas explains why he thinks this recovery in listed earnings is likely to continue through H2; however, he expects Q2’s big outperformers to take a step back in the coming months.

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Charles Gave

Sep 01st 2020

Gavekal readers will be familiar with Charles's distinction between tools and jewels as a way of thinking about markets. He notes that today we have negative real interest rates while gold has outperformed both cash over the last 12 months and the US stock market since 2018. Today, he asks if we are at the start of a new counter-trend rally in gold relative to US equities.

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Will Denyer

Aug 31st 2020

My preferred “NIPA profits” measure fell by -14.4% during the second quarter of the year, according to US national accounts data released late last week. That follows a similarly bad -13.3% fall in the first quarter. Both declines are on par with the worst quarters in post-war history. And like previous low points, US corporate profitability is likely to recover from here. But what does the data tell us about the investment environment and what...

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Will Denyer

Aug 28th 2020

The Federal Reserve made a historic change to its monetary policy framework yesterday when it officially adopted “average inflation targeting”. That bullseye remains 2%, but the definition of the target has changed in a way that, in the current context, effectively raises the inflation outlook. This has important implications for future policymaking and current asset pricing.

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Tan Kai Xian

Aug 27th 2020

The US consumer's willingness to spend remains reliable, even during the pandemic, as shown by consumer discretionary stocks sharply outperforming the rest of the market. Since this stock grouping includes pandemic winners like Amazon and Home Depot there is little reason to bet on a trend-change, as the macro winds should remain favorable.

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Gilliam Collinsworth Hamilton

Aug 27th 2020

Tensions in the South China Sea between the US and China are ramping up during a presidential campaign where the incumbent has set himself on a collision course with China. You do not have to be a crazed conspiracy theorist to wonder if this theatre could be the scene of an “October Surprise”.

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Charles Gave

Aug 25th 2020

The sage of Omaha made an interesting change of tack recently. Warren Buffet sold most of his shares in Goldman Sachs and bought positions in Barrick Gold. Goldman is often held up as the very epitome of the Wall Street financial engineering firm. Meanwhile, Barrick represents the kind of company you would buy if you no longer trusted financial engineering—or the currency in which the financial engineering is taking place.

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Nick Andrews

Aug 25th 2020

No sector has been so beaten down as eurozone banks. But although bad loan ratios are rising, and further big writedowns are on the cards, this bad news is in the price. What is less adequately priced in is the change in policy from the European Union which means there will be no early return to austerity. Eurozone banks may be better placed than investors believe to generate earnings.

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Yanmei Xie

Aug 21st 2020

Joe Biden has accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination to run for the US presidency. Invoking Franklin D. Roosevelt, who responded to the Great Depression with huge public works, Biden promised big fiscal programs to “build back better” after the Covid-19 recession. He also vowed to combat climate change, reduce wealth disparities and advance liberal causes.

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Louis Gave

Aug 21st 2020

A few years back Charles and Louis bought into the storied Biarritz Olympique Rugby Club in order to save it from a looming bankruptcy. The ups and downs of this Basque region club during Covid is a microcosm of the French economy’s travails, as the state seeks to protect all players on the field of commerce from both crunching tackles and a spell in the sin bin.

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Will Denyer

Aug 20th 2020

Pandemic aside, the US faces a looming fiscal cliff and rising political risk as the presidential election campaign starts proper. So why is Will so sanguine about the country’s economic prospects? In this video interview, he explains his position.

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Tan Kai Xian

Aug 19th 2020

With more than 90% of firms in the S&P 500 having reported for the second quarter, the hit to earnings came in nowhere near as bad as expected. This picture is likely to be sustained in the coming year, or so and should lay the ground for solid US equity market performance. Yet, those hoping for a sustained economic recovery to generate the kind of epic returns seen in 2Q20, or in 2009 after the financial crisis, will likely be disappointed.

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Dan Wang

Aug 18th 2020

The US government has passed a death sentence on Huawei. The questions now are whether it will choose to suspend that sentence, and whether China will retaliate by punishing major US companies. The likely answers, says Dan, are no and no. Huawei is probably finished as a maker of 5G network equipment and smartphones once its inventories run out early next year.

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Louis Gave

Aug 17th 2020

With US$3trn added to the US national debt during the Covid-19 crisis and trillions more in the works should new salary replacement payments be agreed in Congress, a vital question for investors is how to think about this runaway government spending and what it means for bonds and the US dollar.

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Louis Gave

Aug 14th 2020

China is engaged in an imperial project that will not be typified by territorial conquest, but by “road building”. This is done to bring commodities to the heart of the empire at the cheapest cost, while higher value-added finished goods are pushed out to its outer realms. It is no coincidence that a common saying for Europeans is that “all roads lead to Rome’”.

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Vincent Tsui

Aug 13th 2020

As US equities brush up against new highs and safety assets like gold and treasuries sell off, global risk appetite has risen this week. Investors are betting that a vaccine for Covid-19 is at hand and if not, the world is at least learning to live with the virus. A potential beneficiary of this situation may be Asian bond markets, where quite decent yield can still be had.

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Cedric Gemehl

Aug 12th 2020

In response to the Covid-19 crisis, central banks in Europe have shoveled money to banks in a bid to have them deliver liquidity to stressed companies. A worry is that this new debt binge will weigh down corporate balance sheets for years to come, and limit growth. These concerns are probably overdone.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Arthur Kroeber

Aug 11th 2020

The China hawks are at the wheel in the Trump administration and driving as fast as they can. In this report, Arthur outlines the many tactics being employed by hardliners in the White House to lock in an adversarial stance against China ahead of the US elections. However tense things have been so far, even tenser times lie ahead.

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Tan Kai Xian

Aug 10th 2020

The renewed Covid-19 outbreak in the past two months put a brake on the US recovery, but that engine is again firing. Despite many states having reversed opening measures, Friday’s payroll report came in strong, with the unemployment rate down to 10.2%; high-frequency data like mobility readings paint a similar picture.

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Louis Gave

Aug 07th 2020

Just as success has many fathers, there are many possible explanations for the upside breakout in gold prices. Obvious explanations include a rapid rise in monetary aggregates across the OECD, the fall in the US dollar and growing US-China tensions. An overlooked explanation is the demise of physical cash as a liquid and easily transportable asset.

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Yanmei Xie

Aug 06th 2020

With the US presidential election less than three months away, polling suggests Joe Biden and the Democrats have a chance at a clean sweep of the White House and Congress. While Biden has been open about wanting to raise taxes and tackle climate change, he would inherit an economy still reeling from the coronavirus shock. With this in mind, Yanmei outlines what the 100 first days of a Biden presidency are likely to look like.

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Louis Gave

Aug 05th 2020

Despite technology issues sitting at the heart of the great-power struggle between the US and China, tech stocks continue to brush off geopolitical tensions. Louis is concerned that the market's assumptions don't line up with reality on three counts. It all adds up to a bad brew for tech.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Xiaoxi Zhang

Aug 05th 2020

Cleaning up the messy world of wealth-management products is still a key mission in China’s financial de-risking campaign, even if the PBOC has now had to give banks another year to work on it. In this piece, Xiaoxi explains how the regulatory crackdown is pushing the risks hidden in WMPs out into the open, increasing market volatility.

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Dan Wang

Aug 04th 2020

After a whirlwind of negotiations, the US government may have succeeded in forcing the sale of TikTok’s US operations to a US company. The US earlier used national-security grounds to restrict the business of Huawei. Both companies still have large domestic businesses, but US government actions over the past year may mark a peak for the global expansion by Chinese tech firms.

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Will Denyer, Tan Kai Xian, Yanmei Xie

Aug 03rd 2020

The upsurge in second-round Covid-19 infections has put the US economic recovery on hold for now. But government, businesses and consumers have got better at coping with Covid, and in contrast to the first round, the economy is not going backwards.

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Anatole Kaletsky, Arthur Kroeber, Tan Kai Xian

Jul 31st 2020

In our monthly Global Investment Roundtable, US analyst Tan Kai Xian analyzed the latest US data and assessed the risk that the present economic stall-out turns into a double-dip recession. Arthur Kroeber explained why the Trump Administration has amped up its Cold War rhetoric on China. Anatole Kaletsky tied it all together and tried to explain the recent movements in global markets.

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Will Denyer

Jul 30th 2020

The Federal Reserve did not shift its policy stance yesterday and nor is it likely to announce some big-bang reform after a “strategic policy framework review”, which Jerome Powell indicated should be wrapped up within a couple of policy-setting meetings. That may not be an exciting story, but it is one that financial markets will welcome.

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Yanmei Xie

Jul 29th 2020

The Republican Senate proposal for a new stimulus falls far short of the Democratic bill passed in the House in May. Reconciling these differing visions into a unified bill that can pass through both chambers and into law will likely take several weeks at least. As a result, the incomes of 17mn jobless Americans will fall off a cliff at the end of July.

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Dan Wang

Jul 29th 2020

As US-China tensions amp up, Hong Kong faces US actions in response to the national security law imposed by the Chinese government. This includes an end to preferential trade treatment and penalties for foreign financial institutions that transact with officials found to be undermining the city’s freedoms. In this video interview, Dan explains how the program will play out and addresses the question of whether the US government will target Hong...

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Tom Miller, Udith Sikand

Jul 28th 2020

As India's economic and fiscal situation goes from bad to worse, the government is preparing to do the unthinkable: privatize state-owned banks. Ever since the first round of nationalization of private lenders in 1969, the state has kept a tight grip on the financial system. Now it reportedly plans to sell its majority stake in six banks, hoping that an infusion of private capital and managerial skill can nurture them back to health.

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Cedric Gemehl

Jul 27th 2020

The European Union’s decision last week to issue an additional €750bn of debt in its own name has profound implications for the euro-denominated bond markets. Firstly, the decision will mark the emergence of the EU (or more specifically the European Commission) as a major—and relatively attractive—issuer, on a par with sizable European sovereigns. Secondly, EU supranational issuance will be a stabilizing force in the market, reducing the risk...

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Charles Gave

Jul 24th 2020

Charles has often appeared on television shows in France as the token right-wing guy asked to debate a socialist or communist on the proper role of the state. He misses those days, for both he and his adversary usually agreed that the objective was improving the welfare of the average Frenchman—even if they disagreed profoundly on how to achieve this.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Andrew Batson

Jul 24th 2020

China has rapidly bounced back from its Covid-19 lockdown, but the recovery has been an unbalanced one with supply outpacing demand. Economic policy has also turned more cautious amid exuberance in property and financial markets. In this regular chartbook, the Dragonomics team outlines how the next stage of China’s recovery will proceed.

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Yanmei Xie

Jul 23rd 2020

With the Covid-19 outbreak in the US still worsening, special unemployment benefits that have provided a lifeline for 17mn Americans stand to expire at the end of next week. Yet unlike in March, there is scant appetite in Washington DC for a swift bipartisan deal to extend support for the jobless. In this video interview, Yanmei explains what is at stake for the US economy if politicians cannot make a deal before heading off for their summer...

Gavekal Dragonomics

Rosealea Yao

Jul 22nd 2020

The State Council recently announced a nationwide target to renovate 39,000 antiquated residential compounds in 2020, improving accommodation for 7mn total households. In this Quick Take, Rosealea explains how the target will provide space for local governments to further tighten property policy without upsetting China’s economic recovery.

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Anatole Kaletsky, Louis Gave, Nick Andrews, Cedric Gemehl

Jul 22nd 2020

Anatole Kaletsky, Cedric Gemehl and Nick Andrews joined Louis Gave to talk about what lies in store for the European Union in light of Tuesdays agreement on a €750 billion Covid-19 recovery fund.

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Louis Gave

Jul 21st 2020

In the second quarter of this year, global equity markets registered their best quarterly performance in two decades. In this, the third paper of a series about the record-breaking rebound, I will consider the possibility that the present growth in monetary aggregates is leading investors to conclude that they have no alternative.

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Charles Gave

Jul 21st 2020

As the international trading and monetary order of the last 50 years continues to crumble, the endgame must be the US dollar losing its lofty position at the apex of the system. Louis and I have argued that this process began in and around 2005 as the US moved to “weaponize” the dollar, thereby ensuring the renminbi’s emergence as a competitor.

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Vincent Tsui

Jul 17th 2020

Despite a worsening Covid-19 situation in many big developing economies and concerns over central banks’ monetization responses, emerging market investors continue to climb the wall of worry, betting that a putative “second wave” does not stymie the recoveries of developed economies and China. But another challenge for EM economies is a collapse in foreign tourism.

Gavekal Dragonomics

Thomas Gatley, Rosealea Yao, Wei He, Xiaoxi Zhang

Jul 16th 2020

Although Q2 GDP growth rebounded strongly after Q1’s significant contraction, sequential growth slowed considerably into June. In this Quick Take, Thomas, Rosealea, Wei and Xiaoxi report on why despite this latest rebound it will be difficult for the country to maintain its upward momentum as it moves into Q3.

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Vincent Tsui

Jul 16th 2020

Just days after securing another five years in power at the ballot box, Singapore’s government announced that the island republic’s gross domestic product contracted a worse-than-expected -12.6% year-on-year in the second quarter. However, with large accumulated fiscal reserves, the government has considerable scope to spend in order to stimulate Singapore’s economy.

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Tom Miller

Jul 15th 2020

The British government’s decision to block Huawei from the UK’s 5G mobile network, confirmed yesterday, is further evidence that the post-Covid world is splitting into two opposing security blocs. International distrust of China is hardening along ideological lines, spurring liberal nations to prioritize national security over economic growth.

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Dan Wang

Jul 14th 2020

The Chinese semiconductor industry has made substantial progress over the last year, making credible gains in both design and production—despite attempts by the US to stymie China’s advancement. In this report, Dan explains how the US has escalated its anti-China campaign and outlines the rough road ahead for the industry.